


A Fool for Lesser Things

by paradisecity



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-30
Updated: 2010-07-30
Packaged: 2018-01-09 06:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradisecity/pseuds/paradisecity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elena has a choice to make. Damon won't let her choose by default.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fool for Lesser Things

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Small Fandom Fest; the specific prompt was "choose me."

There are many things Damon could say about Stefan (oh -- so, so many) but praise at this stealth will never be one of them. Stefan's so ridiculously transparent; Damon hasn't needed the last hundred and forty-five years of brotherhood to be able to see right through him. So when he hears that Stefan's returned to Mystic Falls not six months after he was there last, Damon knows something must be wrong.

He's right.

Her name is Elena.

Her eerie resemblance to Katherine hits him hard and it's longer than he cares to admit before he feels steady on his feet again. When he does, he starts looking for answers and finds nothing but disappointment. She isn't Katherine, not in way, shape, or form. She's just a sad, lonely little girl stumbling under the weight of her grief as martyrdom. The only thing that's interesting about her is Stefan's interest in her.

Damon's always assumed their mutual interest in Katherine was more a result of compulsion on Stefan's part than any true similarity between them. To find otherwise would be surprising; he might have something to say in praise of Stefan's stealth if that were the case. But as he watches the poorly faked smiles that stand in contrast to the sackcloth and ashes she dons each day, he realizes all Stefan's interested in is the opportunity to martyr himself along with her. It'll be like the most painfully amateur Shakespeare Damon can imagine and he almost doesn't want to stick around for it.

However, his master plan requires he stay in Mystic Falls. If Stefan wants to provide him with some second-rate entertainment and an opportunity to make good on his promise of eternal misery, Damon's not about to say no.

\--------

It's Halloween and while Damon's not particularly hungry -- he's more bored than anything, really -- he wants a treat. A sybarite, he'd have been called in more refined times. Now he'd probably just be labeled an emotional eater and sent to the nearest self-help section. How he misses polite society.

He finds Bonnie on the school lawn, wearing what might be the most hideous wig he's ever seen as part of her costume. "So where'd Caroline run off to?" he asks her, and it's only in his attempt to ignore both her wig and her meaningless prattle that he notices Emily's crystal around her neck.

"Where'd you get that?"

"From a friend," she says, and clutches it protectively.

"Caroline," he surmises. "You know that's mine, don't you?"

"Not anymore."

"Funny," he says, though it’s anything but. "I'd like it back, please."

"I'm not giving it to you. I'll give it to Caroline and she can give it to you if she feels like it."

He's already tried asking nicely and now he’s out of patience. "Or I can just take it now," he says, but when he reaches out to grab the crystal, it burns him unexpectedly. He feels an echo of sunlight race like fire up his spine and lets go with a hiss.

From the look on her face, Bonnie's as surprised as he is. Then she does the most sensible thing anyone's done since he's returned to this pathetic little town and runs. Unfortunately, she takes a key piece of his master plan with her.

The only thing that stops the black cloud he can feel forming behind his eyes is Stefan's call. Not only is it timely, but it comes with some of Damon's favorite words to hear from him: "I need your help."

By the time Damon makes his way to the bus lot, Stefan and Jeremy are already gone. It's just Elena, kneeling beside Vicki's gray, desiccated body. "You should go," he says. "I've got this."

He's trying to be helpful, trying to spare Elena an excuse to pull out the sackcloth and ashes she’s only just put away, but she's got her accusatory face on. "You did this. This is your fault."

Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. Either way, it doesn’t really matter. "You confuse me for someone with remorse," he replies, but it only serves to turn her accusations into anger. She pushes him, then tries to hit him. It's completely ineffectual but it's the first time he's seen anything like life in her, even if it's there only because there isn't any left in Vicki.

Still. "None of this matters to me," he says. "None of it."

"People die around you," she says. "How could it not matter? It matters and you _know_ it!" She hits him then, and he lets her.

It doesn't stop him from staring her down, all threat and theatrics. "Mmm," he says, as he breathes her in. "You need to leave."

She stays frozen in place, her eyes on Vicki. "Your wounds are bleeding," he repeats slowly, "and you need to leave."

He wouldn't feed on her -- she probably tastes like cotton candy and rainbows and he's got a much more sophisticated palate -- but the implied threat does its job.

When she's gone he kneels beside Vicki's body and considers it for a moment. It's not remorse he feels, not exactly -- Vicki's death and its accoutrements are simply a byproduct of who he is and what he does; he won't seek forgiveness for existing -- but he recognizes that his actions have had unintended consequences. It offends his sense of containment, of expertise. Allowing Elena and Jeremy to witness a mess he specifically intended for Stefan violates the very spirit of his grand gesture.

So it's not remorse that leads Damon back to Elena's that night or to offer his assistance when she says, "Stefan, please. I don't know how he'll ever get past this. I just want him to forget everything that happened."

"I can do it," Damon says, stepping from the shadows. "If this is what you want, I'll do it."

It's not remorse. It's professional pride and the opportunity to take advantage of Stefan's impotence. It's the way Stefan hangs his head, defeated, when she says, "It's what I want." It's the insecurity he knows he'll see in Stefan for days, weeks, wondering what else Damon can give her that he can't. It's just another way for Damon to fulfill his promise.

"What do you want him to know?" he asks.

She looks him in the eye, faking confidence, but he can see how much the decision’s costing her. "I want you to tell him that Vicki left town," she says, "and she’s not coming back. He shouldn’t look for her or worry about her. He’s going to miss her but he knows it’s for the best."

Damon nods and heads upstairs. It’s easy enough to do; as a favor, it’s not asking much. If Elena wants to interpret his actions as an apology, well, it won't be the first time she's mistaken the intentions of a Salvatore brother.

\--------

Damon's not a fan of happy endings. They're trite, misguided, and most offensive of all, completely untrue. So when he hears Stefan and Elena making their own happy ending upstairs after the career fair, he figures it's as good a time as any to get out from under Stefan's watchful eye and confirm Logan's information with Bree. He'd prefer to have more time to do some recon first -- witches have a way of changing their minds about him and a sharp stake seems to be their preferred method of communication -- but a last-minute road trip doesn't sound like the worst idea he's ever had.

He doesn't anticipate having to rescue Elena from yet another unknown vampire before he even hits the highway, but her rolled-over SUV is like an emergency beacon in the middle of the blacktop. He has no idea what she's doing out here when the last time he heard her she was muffling her sighs and moans in Stefan's arms the way she probably thinks a good girl should, but those questions can wait.

When he pulls her out of the wreckage she's limp but mostly alert in his arms. "Are you okay?" he asks. "Can you stand? Is anything broken?"

She shakes her head and he sets her down, a steadying hand at the small of her back. She stumbles and he’s quick to catch her but it's clear she's fading fast. "Elena. Look at me. Focus," he says, tilting her chin up so her eyes meet his.

There's a moment of clarity despite the tears and she says brokenly, "I look like her," before her body gives in and she faints.

It's a perfectly clear and succinct answer to the question he didn't even have a chance to ask. This is clearly Stefan's fault; it’s got his signature all over it, the way he always ruins the things he cares about most. Damon could be angry about it, if he cared enough, but once he knows Elena’s not hurt he’s mostly just enjoying the schadenfruede of it all. He knows Stefan sees himself as the hero in their brotherly narrative but Damon's been amassing more and more evidence to the contrary. It’s not a role he necessarily wants to play, but it is one he enjoys denying Stefan. So while this last-minute road trip didn’t start out as one of the best ideas he’s ever had, taking his brother’s heartbroken girlfriend along for the ride suddenly makes it look a whole lot better.

It seems that way, at least, with just the open road and the hum of the Camaro's engine for company, until Elena wakes up and starts fussing with him.

"We have to go back," she says, and she’s so painfully predictable. No wonder Stefan loves her -- all of Katherine's beauty, none of her fun.

"Oh, come on," he says, "We've already come this far."

"Why are you doing this? I can't be in Georgia." He rolls his eyes and only just refrains from pointing out that worrying about things she can't do after she's already done them is pointless. Although it is a rather apt synecdoche for the entirety of her Salvatore experience.

It’s much easier to talk her down after Stefan calls. Damon’s impressed; however she found out about Katherine, it must have been spectacular. Before Stefan called, Elena was only hurt. Now she’s angry, too, and it’s hardly any effort at all to talk her back into the car.

"Am I going to be safe with you?" she asks.

His answer is immediate. "Yes."

"Do you promise not to do that mind control thing with me?"

"Yes."

"Can I trust you?"

He hesitates, and it's a surprise. He lies more easily than he tells the truth but somehow he's decided he’s not lying to her, not today. "Come on, get in the car," he says instead, and she does.

For a while, things go as he knew they would but hoped they wouldn’t: Bree confirms Emily’s spell is absolute and Logan was lying; Elena remains suspicious about his motives despite the obvious fact that she trusts him; and what passes for top shelf in Bree’s dive is little more than swill. Still, spending the evening watching his brother’s girlfriend drink herself into an ever-increasing state of undress isn’t the worst way to spend an evening.

Then Elena disappears and it all goes to hell. It’s obvious Bree’s turned on him and Damon’s angry, but he has to give her credit -- at least she was original enough to forego the stake.

When he finds Elena, he expects to save her; twice in one day, Stefan will be green with envy. What he doesn’t expect is for Elena to save him but that’s exactly what she does. She takes the long way around, playing on Lee’s inherent goodness rather than Damon’s worth, but the result is the same: lying on the ground, covered in gasoline, a lit match above him, it’s Elena’s words that save him.

"Lexi loved you and she was good," Elena pleads with Lee. "That means you’re good, too. Be better than him. Don’t hurt him, I’m begging you. Please."

Lee finds mercy -- or misguided pity; people get them so easily confused -- and Elena sits with Damon after Lee's through with him. He grits his teeth against the feeling of his wounds closing and his bones knitting themselves back together. When he’s steady on his feet again, he’s focused on revenge and a shower, not necessarily in that order.

He talks Elena into breaking into a motel room -- "I'm a walking fire hazard, Elena, and I'm too pretty to die by accidental immolation" -- and it’s a small matter to slip back to the bar while Elena’s taking her own shower and dispense with Bree. She tells him about Emily’s grimoire and in response, he rips her heart out. He makes it relatively quick in deference to what passed for friendship, but he still enjoys the sight of her blood pooling on the floor.

He’s back at the motel before Elena’s out of the shower and then they’re back on the road again. They watch the sun coming up in silence, gilding the fields in gold. Then she turns to him and finally asks the question he’s been waiting for since he put her in the car.

"Why did you bring me with you?"

He watches the blur of paint on the blacktop and considers telling her the truth. He decides against it, then reconsiders -- he's already in for a penny. "You're not the worst company in the world, Elena."

"Seriously?" she asks skeptically.

"I don't know," he says. "You were in the road, all damsel-in-distress-like, and I knew it would piss off Stefan. And you're not the worst company in the world, Elena."

She takes that in, then smiles. "I saved your life," she says proudly.

"I know."

He doesn’t tell her she’s the first person who’s cared enough to try.

\--------

The Founder’s Council continues to be, as always, an immeasurably large thorn in his side. His original plan was an exercise in simplistic beauty: return to Mystic Falls, rescue Katherine from the tomb, and then chase a bloody happily ever after.

Instead of this simplicity, he walked into a clusterfuck that seems to be inevitably approaching epic proportions: he found Elena, didn’t find Katherine, discovered John’s magic invincibility ring, and translated "I don’t love you anymore, Alaric," in Isobel to "Surprise! I’m a vampire!" in English. And to top off the terrible, no-good, very bad week he’s been having, now Stefan’s back on human blood and lying to everyone about it.

And that’s the final straw. While Damon would normally approve of Stefan’s new lifestyle choice, not only is it making Damon’s plan more complicated, but it’s also putting both Stefan and Elena at risk. Stefan would never allow that to happen under normal circumstances and Damon’s not about to allow it either, certainly not with the Council on high alert.

Damon finds Elena upstairs during the Founder’s Court party, about to dress for the pageant. It's not the best timing ever but it does come with a nice view. He enjoys it for a moment before he says, "We need to talk," because there’s always beauty in the midst of tragedy. Or something.

"Does it have to be right now?" she asks.

"Stefan’s still drinking human blood," he says, getting right to the point. Elena claims not to believe him at first, all loyalty, so he tells her about Stefan’s secret stash of soccer mom. Convincing her is much easier than he anticipated and he wonders if some part of her has suspected all along. "He’s spent all this time fighting it instead of learning to control it," he continues, "and now it’s controlling him instead."

"This is Stefan we’re talking about here," she protests, but it's halfhearted.

"It’s Stefan on human blood, Elena. He’ll do anything, say anything. Trust me."

She finds out for herself first when he abandons her during the pageant (and it’s the highlight of Damon’s no-good, very bad week to be able to literally step into Stefan’s place by her side) and later when she finds him snarling like a monster in the woods, Amber’s blood dripping from his fangs.

She understands then, more than Damon knows Stefan ever hoped she would. With Alaric’s help and one of his tranquilizer darts, their betrayal comes together in just a few minutes. Damon’s half-certain Elena’s going to back out but instead she plays her role perfectly, even stabbing Stefan in the back for dramatic effect. Damon watches from the hall and he's quietly proud of not just her bravery, but her panache.

Still, he gives her one last chance to change her mind and absolve herself of the guilt he can already see coming. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asks.

She looks at Stefan's prone body, blinking back tears, but her voice is steady. "I’m sure," she says, and follows Damon as he drags Stefan down to the cellar. He locks the door tightly and ensures it’s secured.

"Are you coming?" he asks, when he turns to leave and Elena hesitates.

"I’m going to stay here," she says, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. It’ll do no good -- Stefan will be out for hours -- but the guilt is already weighing her down. He joins her, though he's not entirely sure why, and they pass the hours in a silent vigil.

That first night sets the tone for the week that follows. Stefan is broody, taciturn, and in full-on martyr mode. Elena talks at him until she can't stand his silence, then seeks solace in Damon. Sometimes it's dinner or conversation, bad TV or just someone else's presence in the room while she writes in her diary. When she's tired enough to sleep she heads to one of the spare rooms -- after the second night, Damon stops inviting her to join him in his -- then gets up in the morning and does it all over again.

It works, more or less, until Damon returns from taking care of Henry in Grove Hill. "It was futile," he reports to Elena, sitting next to her on the couch, "although I think I witnessed the teacher having an existential crisis."

She wrinkles her nose and he shares the sentiment. Then he asks after Stefan and she's inexplicably accusatory. "He’s got a lot of guilt he has to deal with," she says, "and it doesn’t help that you’ve spent the last hundred and forty-five years punishing him for Katherine getting caught."

"So this is my fault now?" he asks, and he’s surprised to be as taken aback as he is.

"It’s no one’s fault, Damon," she says, though she clearly means otherwise. "I’m just saying you’re not exactly innocent. You’ve made it your life’s mission to make him miserable."

His anger flares then, hot and unexpectedly bright. "Let me ask you a question. In all this important soul searching and cleansing of demons past, did you ever manage to get the rest of the story?"

Now she looks taken aback. "He said there was more," she admits.

"That’s an understatement."

"Tell me," she says, and he does.

It’s not the story she’s expecting but it’s the truth. Damon doesn't even have to try to vilify Stefan; his actions are all the embellishment Damon needs. She listens in stunned silence even as her understanding of Stefan's current attempt at sainthood grows.

"I suppose I should thank him," Damon says, when the tale’s been told in all its bloody entirety. "It’s been a hell of a ride."

"Don’t do that," she says and all he hears is misplaced judgment. "Don’t act like you don’t care." Then, through a faint haze of scotch, Damon watches her turn and run for Stefan the way he always knew she would.

The days that follow Stefan’s recovery are sickeningly sweet. The Elena Damon liked best, the one with bravery and panache, is replaced by the idealistic and willfully ignorant one who continues to love Stefan blindly. Damon knows she doesn’t see Stefan any differently for knowing the truth, though given the way Stefan rewrote his history with lies by omission, she should.

As the days fade into each other, though, he begins to notice something different in the way she sees him. It looks less like accusation and hasty conclusions and more like appreciation, like she knows now that there was no ulterior motive in Damon's desire to keep her and Stefan safe.

Whether she sees him differently is ultimately irrelevant; he doesn’t need her approval. He’d do it all again and just the same even if he knew it would end differently and she’d hate him for the outcome.

Still, he knows the way she looks at him now means something more than it did before.

\--------

One of Damon’s cardinal rules is to always have a back-up plan, even if it consists solely of "turn and run like hell." So when Isobel kidnaps Jeremy and their best plan -- to let the witch-in-training deactivate the Gilbert doodad -- is significantly worse than his back-up, he has some serious objections.

"Absolutely not," he says.

"Just hear me out," Elena protests.

"I’m not going to give the device to Isobel so she can give it to John, who’s going to turn around and kill me. I like being a living dead person."

"But it’ll be useless! Bonnie can take the power away."

"I can remove the original spell," Bonnie insists, but Damon doesn't trust people who'd like to see him dead. Well, deader than he already is.

"No," he says. "No. I’ll get Jeremy my own way."

"How are you going to do that?" Stefan asks, with his impeccably frustrating timing. "Isobel’s a vampire and Jeremy can be dead the second you walk in the door."

Unfortunately, Stefan has a point. Holding out for a better idea will only get Jeremy killed through inaction.

"Are you up for this?" he asks Bonnie. "No offense, but you’re no Emily Bennett. Emily knew what she was doing."

Her little parlor trick does nothing to convince him. In fact, just the idea that she equates risking their lives with pulling a book from a shelf is all the proof he needs that this is a Very, Very Bad Idea. He says as much and Bonnie’s flip admission that he can’t trust her doesn't help her cause, but Elena’s right. They’re running out of time and he doesn’t have a better option. If he had a wheelbarrow and a holocaust cloak maybe he could work something out, but the witch is all they’ve got.

"You can trust me," Elena says.

He does, only to find himself later in the apothecary basement with flames coming up fast all around him as a result. Drugged and weakened, he’s helpless to do anything but watch Anna's murder and the flames' inevitable slow march.

As he does, he realizes his fatal error isn’t the lack of a back-up plan -- at this point, even "turn and run like hell" has failed him. Instead, it's been taking a woman at her word. He always thought Katherine would be the end of him; he’s not sure if he’s more disappointed or proud to find it’s going to be Elena instead.

But his error is more than just that. Ultimately, this is result of caring about people and allowing them to care about him. He’s not sure when or how that happened; living outside humanity means he doesn’t have to abide by their social contract. Until now, it’s been one of the things he’s enjoyed most about his existence.

But it seems that his existence has changed in some global and fundamental way. He came to Mystic Falls wanting to destroy it but what he’s been doing instead looks a lot more like protecting it. This isn’t who he is, this person who does good because he should, because it’s right. He never has been. He never wanted to be. It's incredibly disconcerting to find he's been so unaware of something so important.

He's debating the validity of deathbed existential crises when he hears Stefan calling for him. "Damon! Damon! I'm here!"

Stefan returns their brotherly narrative to equilibrium by riding to the rescue, pulling Damon from the smoke and flames. That it's not Stefan's effort alone gives Damon pause. Stefan would have saved him simply because they’re brothers but Bonnie and Elena have no such obligation. It serves as further proof that perhaps he's become someone he never intended to be: someone others care about, someone others consider worth saving. As much as it pains him to admit it he has to consider the possibility that he's just the last to know.

Damon’s never been one for the self-examined life but he’s also never been one to lie to himself. It’s self-indulgent, dangerous, and he’s skilled enough at both the telling and the reading of it that it soon becomes pointless. If this is who he is then it's who he's going to be, intentionally and without cowardice. There's no other decision to make.

He starts by slipping away to the Gilberts' in the confusion that follows the fire. He finds Jeremy there, the pain radiating off him in waves.

"Anna’s dead," Damon tells him, plainly but regretfully. "I know you cared about her. I saw her killed. I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t."

Jeremy already knew but Damon can see his words have added to Jeremy's grief. "Why are you telling me this?" he asks.

"I took away your suffering once before," Damon says. "I can do it again, but it’s your choice."

Jeremy's declination is immediate, and with good reason. "It won't fix what's really wrong," he says.

Damon hesitates, then thinks of intentionality and steels himself. "What I did to Vicki was wrong," he says. "I’m sorry for my part."

His apology fades into the silence of the room, though Damon thinks it's been heard.

"Anna said vampires don’t feel pain," Jeremy says instead, "that they can shut off their humanity."

"It’s very true."

"Is that what you did?"

"I did it for a very long time," Damon says, and he’s hardly surprised at all to find himself answering in the past tense.

\--------

Damon’s never been one for asking. He's been lucky enough that much of what he's wanted has been freely given and ruthless enough that everything else has been easily enough taken. But his answer to Jeremy's question casts his actions in a different light. He sees now that what he's been doing all this time has been asking. It hasn't been intentional and it hasn't been in words, but it's been asking all the same.

_I can help you._

_I can be trusted._

_I can protect you._

_I will let you save me._

They're variations on a theme and it's one he's intimately familiar with. It represents, really, the only thing worth asking for.

_Choose me._

Because that's what it is -- a choice. Elena has a choice and it's one he'll ask her to make. He won't let her choose by default or inertia; neither of them is cowardly enough to allow that to happen and all three of them deserve better. He doesn't know when he'll ask or how, but he knows now that he will.

Then meets her on the porch, coming in to the house as he's leaving. He feels unsteady on his feet again just as he did when he first saw her. In that moment, standing beautiful and silent in the moonlight, she feels familiar -- dangerous but somehow still offering a safe haven.

He wonders if it was always going to be like this, if this moment has always been their own personal inevitability. He doesn't know what her answer is going to be but he knows that right here, right now, he can't do anything but ask.


End file.
